


and i’d give anything just to touch you

by Pixeled



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Angst, Feels, M/M, Pain, Reeve gets plastered and tells Vincent he loves him, Scars, Tifa is a mother hen, Trauma, aborted sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-23 19:29:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20345485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pixeled/pseuds/Pixeled
Summary: When Reeve gets too close, Vincent pulls away.





	and i’d give anything just to touch you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EvilRobotCat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilRobotCat/gifts).

> Look, I can’t do smut without PAIN and ANGST and Vince has a lot of issues and trauma.

Reeve was acting like a school girl with a crush. He knew it, and he also knew he was being obvious, but he didn’t care. He also knew he was drunk and rambling at Tifa in her bar at three in the morning. Everyone else had already left. She was probably tired, but part of him didn’t care. He’d been needing to get this off his chest, and if he was the proverbial father of the group, she was their proverbial mother, always worrying if they all ate or other things mothers said and did.

“Just tell him,” she offered. Oh, he knew she was trying to be helpful, but what could he possibly say? Hi, look, I know you’ve been pining for some woman who encapsulated herself in a crystal for all eternity, but have sex with me? No, that wouldn’t do. A weird thought came into his head. He could try ordering him—he always went along with whatever he asked of him. But no. That would be a heinous idea. And besides, above all else, they were friends. Or at least he hoped they were. And he didn’t just want sex. He wanted love.

“I don’t want to ruin our friendship,” Reeve sighed.

“But you’re miserable, Reeve. I haven’t seen you this bad since Meteorfall and when we evacuated Midgar. And, you know, Vincent could use a distraction that’s not work-related.” She winked. She was polishing some glasses, putting things away. Maybe that should be his cue. And she was right. He was feeling miserable.

“I don’t want it to be just a distraction,” Reeve scoffed.

“I know,” Tifa said softly, not unkindly. “Just tell him. You deserve to be happy. So does he.” That was an understatement. Vincent deserved more than happiness. He deserved everything he had never gotten. A chance at life. Reeve considered what Tifa said. He probably wouldn’t ever say anything, but he appreciated the words nonetheless.

Vincent had been staying with him for a month so far. He’d given him the guest bedroom. It was an excuse to keep him close and he knew it. He stole looks at him all the time. While they were eating, when Vincent did little mundane tasks like wash the dishes in the sink. He listened to the shower run and thought about what he looked like in there, naked. He was lovesick. Sometimes on their missions, when Vincent was too close, his heart hammered in his chest. He told himself Vincent was just being protective, but he liked that about the raven-haired man; he was fiercely protective of his friends. It hadn’t been too long ago that he had had no friends, no attachments, no hopes or dreams. He only had the bitter taste of regret and the desire for sleep, the desire for atonement. Well, now he had saved the planet from Omega. He had absolved whatever sins he thought he had committed. Or, at least, Reeve had hoped he saw it that way. But he knew Vincent had probably not moved on from his love for Lucrecia, and that made him miserable. Besides, Vincent was probably straight as an arrow.

Bidding Tifa a good night (morning) and apologizing for monopolizing her time, Reeve wove his way home in a (mostly) straight line. He didn’t know if Vincent would be there. Some nights he left, simply telling Reeve he would be back later. Some nights there’d just be a note in Vincent’s tight scrawl. What he did when he left, he didn’t know. He pretended he didn’t care.

When he walked in the door, the lights were all off, the air still. There was no sign that Vincent had been there recently. Just as well. Reeve wanted to sit with his thoughts, stew silently. He walked over to the liquor cabinet, took out the decanter of aged scotch, a cut glass that matched the pattern of the decanter, and poured himself a drink. Probably a bad decision, but he had made plenty of those over the years. He could care less. He took the glass and started walking to his study, and then circled back to pick up the decanter, walking with both to his desk. He turned on his lamp on the lowest setting and sat, taking a long slow swallow of the scotch. It burned going down just the way he liked it to. His own stuff was better than the swill Tifa served, but he’d never tell her that. He had a headache, and his eyes burned, but he took another sip anyway. When the glass was drained, he poured himself another one immediately. It was at this point that he heard the front door open after the slide of mechanical locks. Heard the clink of keys hitting the bowl on the table to the side. It could only be Vincent. Reeve swallowed thickly, sat in the almost-darkness, and let himself go still. He hoped Vincent would just go to his room, leave him alone, but then he heard a soft knock on the door to his study. Well. Reeve ignored it at first.

“I know you’re in here,” Vincent said in his dark-as-sin voice that often sent shivers down Reeve’s spine. Reeve looked at his watch. It was four in the morning. His head was swimming. He was in a foul mood, and he wasn’t really prepared to talk to Vincent. To his credit, Vincent didn’t immediately come in. He hesitated. But then he was striding into the room.

“Hello, Vincent,” Reeve said, trying hard to focus. He pushed his glass across the desk, away from himself.

“You’ve been drinking,” Vincent said. “Is everything all right?” Oh, Reeve thought, everything is fine, I’m just pining for a man I’ll never have. He of course didn’t voice this.

“Everything is perfect,” Reeve lied.

“You don’t get drunk,” Vincent said, raising a delicate black brow.

“As a rule, I like to keep my head,” Reeve agreed. His thought that followed was “but I can’t keep my head around you.” He of course didn’t say it out loud.

“What’s happened?” Vincent asked, tilting his head.

“Stress,” Reeve said. It was technically true. He _was _under a lot of stress. He was acting commissioner of the World Regenesis Organization. He was everyone’s fearless leader. He had a world to save, so stress was an everyday feeling that thrummed just beneath his chest in his heart.

“You should go to sleep,” Vincent cautioned. “You smell like a bar.”

“Well, I _did _visit Tifa,” Reeve shrugged. Vincent made a face. “Yes, well.” What the hell. “She had some good advice.”

“She usually does,” Vincent admitted. “What was it?”

“She told me to be truthful. With you.”

“And you are not?” Vincent asked, confused.

“No,” Reeve said simply. “I’ve been hiding how I’ve felt for a while now.” He couldn’t look at Vincent. His beauty pained him.

“How you feel?” Vincent asked, even more confused.

“I love you,” Reeve said in a low, barely perceptible whisper. The silence stretched before them. Reeve knew that Vincent had heard. “And I know that you don’t feel that way about me. So I hope that we can still be friends.”

Vincent looked at him for a long time and then slowly shook his head.

“How long?”

“For a while,” Reeve said, studying Vincent’s face. He didn’t look angry, he didn’t look shocked, he didn’t even look disgusted. He just looked. Straight into Reeve’s eyes.

“You shouldn’t,” Vincent said softly.

“Why?”

“I’m not a good man.”

“But you are,” Reeve protested, getting up from the chair he was in to stumble over to Vincent. He pressed his lips to Vincent’s, and his eyes widened when Vincent kissed back. The kiss lasted for a long few moments. It felt like forever and not long enough to Reeve.

When Vincent broke the kiss Reeve felt like he was drowning. Part of him wondered if he was imagining all of this.

“Go to bed, Reeve,” Vincent said, and then he was gone from the room.

Later that day, when Reeve woke up, he had a pounding headache, his mouth was dry, and his eyeballs felt tacky. He padded into the kitchen and drank straight from the faucet like a cat, then poured himself a proper glass. He drank three glasses of water and then slowly moved his way to Vincent’s room. The door was ajar. Inside, the man was nowhere to be found, but a series of guns laid along the desk. Cerberus was there in pieces, an oily rag laid over it. He’d been cleaning them. Vincent didn’t go anywhere without a weapon, so where was he?

That was when the front door opened. Vincent was carrying a few bags. Groceries. He was wearing a skintight black turtleneck and black slacks with his usual boots, but his cape was off and the usual belts and buckles were absent. He could never look like a typical citizen, but this was probably the closest he had ever come. Reeve felt his heart go up into his throat. Vincent was so handsome it almost always stole his breath away.

“I’m going to cook you something greasy. I imagine you have a hangover. Go shower.”

Reeve _did _have a hangover. It’d been some time since he’d had one. He couldn’t even remember the last time. It was _awful_. But greasy food sounded perfect and Vincent was a surprisingly good cook. He left the kitchen to do as bidden.

He thought of the kiss while he showered. It was seared in his mind, although the details of how it had happened were fuzzy. It hadn’t been exactly chaste, but there had been no tongue. He wondered if he’d ever kiss Vincent again. Then he remembered that he’d told Vincent that he loved him. He groaned and hit his head against the tiles of the shower wall, embarrassed. He remembered with a deep pain that Vincent _had not _said it back.

When he left the shower and toweled off, he brushed his teeth, gargled so much mouthwash his throat burned, and then he made his way to his room where he grabbed the first things that made sense in his drawers and put them on, padding barefoot into the hallway. The smell of bacon, eggs, potatoes, and peppers drifted to him. He was suddenly starving and nauseated all at once. He vowed to himself to never get that drunk again. This feeling was awful. His brain felt like it was trying to crawl out of his skull.

He went into the kitchen, watching Vincent finish cooking. It was always fascinating to see how the man negotiated his gauntlet. He mainly used it as support, opting to use his right hand for most tasks. Although he could control it reasonably well, it was obvious it was mostly a burden.

“Almost done,” Vincent said, not turning around from the pan. The eggs and bacon were sectioned off on two plates and he was cooking the potatoes and peppers. “How do you feel?”

“Like I’m too old to have drank that much,” Reeve admitted. Vincent laughed softly. The sound went straight to Reeve’s groin. Vincent rarely laughed, and when he did, it was, in a word, sexy. When he was done cooking the potatoes he held the pan’s handle in his right hand and clumsily scooped the contents onto the plates with his clawed hand, then he picked up both plates carefully and put them down on the table, which he had set presumably before he had started cooking. A large jug of water was on the table, along with a bottle of something that claimed to have electrolytes in it and had a preening mint-colored chocobo on the label. It was bright green, almost like the lifestream. Reeve went over and opened the bottle, downing it in one go. Vincent raised one black brow as he watched, sitting at the table and picking up a fork to start eating.

Reeve smiled sheepishly and thanked Vincent for cooking. Vincent shrugged. They were silent for a while. There wasn’t much noise but for the crunching of bacon. Vincent made it a perfect balance of crispy and soft. Reeve thought he’d have to cajole Vincent into cooking more, then he paused. This interaction almost seemed normal, but there was a tense air to the room.

“I told you I loved you, didn’t I?” Reeve asked.

“You did,” Vincent said, taking another bite of his food, having speared a balance of eggs and potatoes on his fork. It was like they were discussing the weather and not Reeve’s feelings.

“I’m sorry,” Reeve said darkly.

“Don’t be,” Vincent said gently.

“Look, I know you love—”

“It’s been a long time,” Vincent said simply, cutting Reeve off. “Yes, I loved Lucrecia, but I’ve learned to move past that. You . . . helped me to. And she would have wanted me to move on anyway.”

“I helped you?” Reeve asked.

“You did,” Vincent said. They both finished eating, and Vincent collected the plates. Reeve made a futile attempt to clean up, but Vincent didn’t let him. While he was washing the dishes and the various pans he’d used, Reeve contemplated Vincent’s words.

“When you kissed me back,” Reeve treaded cautiously, “was it because you wanted to, or . . .”

“I wanted to,” Vincent said simply. He finished drying everything and put it all away, turning and leaning against the sink as he looked at Reeve. His gaze was intense. It always was. Those perfectly strange and beautiful red eyes, trained on Reeve. Well. It was certainly doing something to Reeve. But Vincent couldn’t be looking at him like he thought he was. Or could he be? Reeve swallowed dryly.

“Could I,” Reeve started, his eyes searching Vincent’s, “kiss you again? Sometime?” He quickly added, “I mean. If you want to. If it’s not—”

Vincent pushed himself off the lip of the sink and crossed over to Reeve, his human hand moving up to cup Reeve’s cheek, and then he was slotting his lithe body up against Reeve’s, his lips closing in slowly to press against his. Reeve gasped into the kiss, surprised, and Vincent deepened it, sliding his tongue against the seam of Reeve’s mouth. Reeve kissed back, opening his mouth to accept Vincent’s tongue. They kissed for a long while. Vincent’s hair tickled along Reeve’s arm. It sent a shiver down his spine. He wanted to do more than just kiss Vincent, but this . . . this was perfect. If he never got anything more, he could still die a happy man. Building Edge from almost scratch—the joy he felt then—paled in comparison to this moment. He felt light-headed and warm, the hair on his arms going up as he shivered as the kiss went on. His body was responding, and he suddenly felt like all the blood was draining from him to pool in his belly and also his cheeks, a white hot knife of pleasure washing through him. Vincent was a very good kisser.

When Vincent parted his lips from Reeve’s, they looked kiss-swollen and gorgeous, a light sheen of saliva on them. Reeve inclined his head forward and captured those lips all over again. Vincent moaned into the passionate answering kiss and it knifed down from Reeve’s belly directly into his groin. They kissed until they were both breathless, and then they kissed more.

Vincent slid his hand between their bellies and he curled it loosely around Reeve’s clothed and very interested cock. The rush of air Reeve expelled as his cock twitched in Vincent’s hand buffeted between their lips, and Vincent’s mouth was parted, his eyes slightly glassy with want. Reeve felt himself losing control. He wanted Vincent. Now. But he had to make sure.

“Do you really want—”

“Yes,” Vincent gasped out, and Reeve felt some of his fear and anxiety about the whole situation drain from him.

“Can I touch you?” Reeve asked.

“Yes,” Vincent breathed, removing his hand from Reeve’s suddenly raging erection to move over his hand and guide it to his own cock. Reeve squeezed it lightly, feeling it flesh out beneath his fingers, feeling Vincent twitch. Reeve groaned. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t get drunk again, and yet he was drunk on Vincent.

They made their way to Reeve’s bedroom. It was bigger than Vincent’s, but he wasn’t sure why they made the decision; it was as if they were on autopilot. Reeve was pressing Vincent up against the bed and they both tumbled into it, wrapped around one another. Vincent canted his hips up and then they were grinding against one another breathlessly. They kissed like their lips were meant to belong against one another’s. Vincent fit perfectly up against Reeve, his long legs wrapped around Reeve’s hips, and it was so perfect, but when Reeve started tugging Vincent’s shirt off the raven-haired man’s hand moved over Reeve’s and stopped him. The grip was like iron, and there was a slight tremble to his fingers.

“Don’t take it off,” Vincent said, a kind of quiet desperation in his voice Reeve had never heard before.

“Why?” Reeve asked, his voice raspy with want. He thought Vincent wanted him, too, but maybe . . . maybe . . .

“I . . . have many scars,” Vincent said. His voice had taken on a hint of panic.

“I don’t care about that,” Reeve said. He really didn’t give a damn. He wanted to feel Vincent’s skin against his. He wanted to fuck him so badly his bones ached. No. He wanted to worship him. Make love to him. Fit himself inside his body and get lost in him.

“I do,” Vincent said, too harshly.

The perfection of the moment snapped like a tentative connection, like a spindly twig.

Reeve had ruined everything.

Vincent pushed away from Reeve, got up, left. The door closing sounded deafening. Reeve dropped down into the bed, pressed his face into the sheets, and contemplated screaming in frustration, but that wouldn’t do. He contemplated going after Vincent, telling him it was okay, that they could move at his pace, that he was sorry, but he didn’t do any of that. He let Vincent have his space. He felt hot tears well in his eyes.

He’d ruined everything.

Still, he loved Vincent, and if he would have to bury his feelings deep down for his comfort, he would. He just hoped. Hoped Vincent would come to him. Hoped he could smile again in his presence. Hoped things would be okay again.

Reeve blinked back his tears, hardened his resolve, and left the room to go to his study. He did what he knew best—he buried himself in work.


End file.
